Hi, its been about two weeks into Parrot OS 4.7 Security edition, and I would like to share some honest feedback that I believe would improve parrot, and I mean no disrespect to the developers or the community, but I rate it a D/C- so far, for various reasons i will explain. I really want to get parrot OS to work for me, but the main overriding issue is unnecesary complexity of basic tasks

Ive come off of Linux Mint for about 1 year now, and apart from the occasional desktop crashing which was a quick fix, Im finding Parrot OS very difficult and buggy in comparison, which i need to work for cyber sec studies

The installer is very difficult if one wants to setup an encrypted install with a dual boot, which is a valid operation for a lot of people. I had to follow a youtube tutorial to setup my encrypted install properly, which appears to not have worked as Im having all kinds of issues out of the box. I know this is a common linux install issue, and Im no linux expert, but ive played around with computers for some twenty years now so im not a total noob, and ive spent hours looking for fixes to these probs.

-Right as im typing my cursor is jumping all over the place, very frustrating
-The package manager is complicated and not straightforward, broken package issues which dont seem to be straightforward. ( why not introduce a linux mint style GUI software manager? )
-A lot of things seem quite difficult out of the box, such as installing VirtualBox, having to follow a complicated set of command line steps, or synaptic issues
-Desktop issues galore. From freezing desktop that hangs with just the cursor active, to now becoming a ‘trailing windows’ feature where cellphone photos arent accessible

I know a lot of problems can be resolved by reading, but if a system isn’t being tested in common scenarios for bugs such as with common dual boots, then im not sure it will grow beyond the tiny market share, and frankly, the complexity only causes more bottleknectks in a system, and more inefficiencies. This is how Deming revolutionized Japanese manufacture and quality control- the 80/20 rule (Pareto principle )

I would kindly suggest users and devs try out linux mint for a great overall system that can break the stranglehold/transition users out of Bindows, nd see the great power of simplicity. By testing on everyday users who aren’t linux experts, the inefficiencies of unnecessary complexity can be eliminated.

I find this interesting. I’ve been running the last two versions of Parrot, and truly , I’ve seen none of your bugs. In fact, I had been trying to use Kodachi which I found buggy with worrying gliches. I admit that I dont have your install requirements. I now run Parrot, encrypted, in qubes and it is brilliant.

All of my laptops are older dells. E6530, 6430 and even a 6320. It purrs on all of them. i5s with 16gb and 8gb on the little one. I wonder if this is a hardware issue with these lags, freezes etc.

Just my experience. Mind you I was in a similar position when I was reporting my Kodachi issues with people saying to me what I’m saying to you. Its a weird thing.

It could be that i typically do my usb installs within windows, and forget to turn off anti-virus which often interferes with writing autostart or other features to the usb, perhaps i need to check my image is written correctly because ive found many instructions like using Etcher simply never work, only rufus and similar has given me success. This should be something that is tested in various commonplace environments like windows running an AV like malwarebytes etc, not just by linux masters that install everything at the terminal. Just one hour of testing by an average joe would take parrot and similar linux builds to the moon in terms of popularity and growth, which would see big benefits for all Parrot users and devs dramatically, which should be standard operating procedure instead of being a very niche realm for the very tech profecient who are programming naturals.

I don’t see how complexity benefits anyone in the long run save except for bad actors who exploit complexities and inefficiencies in a system, especially at the dual boot install state or with an encrypted installation, which scares maybe 80% of Bindows refugees. its simply a waste that there isn’t a default state where partitions are handled automatically for an encrypted install, where the user needs to do things manually. There could be a more robust software manager too. These common sense things are being missed and will keep projects like this with huge potential a fraction where it could be, while spyware like Bindows maintains massive dominance. I really hope the devs can see what im trying to communicate here, there definitely has to be some kind of right brain usabiilty/sanity balancing this whole thing out a lot better , otherwise evil villains like gates get to spread their Bindows spyware without challenge, and destroy privacy and freedom. Except for the bugs i love Parrot and hope it gets better and better. /rant

Thank you for honest feedback. It would help us a lot to improve our quality.
Most of serious bugs / glitches are driver problem. For me, Parrot is pretty stable on my devices (PC / Laptop) but it isn’t the same for every user. The problem is we are Debian testing based distro, and by now from what i know Debian team is only having 1 driver maintainer. So any update from Debian side is risky.
1 more problem is package bugs. For example: shiboken2 on Debian testing is having serious bug and radare2-cutter is unable to enable plugin feature because of this bug or impacket is having syntax bugs and smbmap just can’t be used. In fact, i packaged the newer version of Impacket but Palinuro told me that my update can create update conflict from Debian side.

privateer:

but if a system isn’t being tested in common scenarios for bugs such as with common dual boots

This is not totally true. There are some bugs happen only on some specific devices.

Macbooks seem to run into this problem most. Run this to list your current touchpad settings:

synclient -l

change settings:

synclient [-lV?] [var1=value1 [var2=value2] ...]

For more help/questions related to touchpad sensitivity, there is an open thread on touchpad sensitivity. Feel free to post there if you need any further help on this topic to help keep things organized: